Hans and Franz

This weekend, I made a visit to the gym. Personally, Sunday afternoons are an excellent time for me to lift. Anyone in their right mind has found a suitable excuse to skip and it's usually myself, the cleaning staff, and a couple of old folks glued to the same elliptical trainers they were on since last March. This weekend was no exception and I was happily progressing through my workout, enjoying the solitude.
When they showed up.
Apparently, the bus to the ASU kegger stopped short and this straight couple made a detour to 24-Hour Fitness. Why women confuse athletic clubs with dance clubs confounds me, but the chick was dressed like a hooker ready to drop a tab. I prayed to god that she avoided exercises requiring the decline bench. Her boyfriend was 6'4, looked like a model, was built like a brick shit house and probably couldn't count backwards from four. I hated him.
They strutted around the weight room like peacocks, pausing every now and then so that he could pose and she could stretch. I was curious about what they would be lifting today, because if her stretches were any indication, I expected them to be having full-on sex in a matter of minutes. After surveying their countless workout options, they settled on the most critical body part: the abs. And they couldn't just use a fucking machine to do ab exercises. They had to "move equipment"... and "arrange the weights". The flat bench wasn't good enough for crunches. They had to use that inflatable ball instead. My own workout derailed, I continued to watch in sick fascination as they spent the next forty minutes acting like torso contortionists. And then the kicker. As their routine neared the end, Adonis positioned himself on the ball to crank out one more rep. Because obviously the first eighteen sets weren't enough. Being the loving and supporting workout partner that she was, the girlfriend crouched in-between his knees and kissed him on the lips after every crunch.
That's when I tasted my breakfast for the second time that day.

Make Your Resume Stand Apart

Right now my manager is struggling to fill a position on the team. we have been reviewing countless resumes, but the desired programming skillset and customer-focused personality are seldom offered in the same package. We've formally interviewed three candidates already and none seemed to stick. Today I reviewed seven more resumes.
And alas, I think I have found him. The search is over. One read of his "Interests and Activities" section, and I knew he would be the perfect programmer gone postal addition to the team.

"In general, I am fascinated with life itself and the endless process by which personal and overall meaning is derived. I enjoy effective human interaction and cooperation in association with the pursuit and achievement of desirable goals. Specifically, I thrive for the spiritual realm of organized competition and self-expression through athletics, arts, academics, and business."

I am not a career counselor nor a resume writer, so perhaps I may be out of line. But I'm confident that the words "spiritual realm" should never make their way to a curriculum vitae. Brent, take note.

Bloggers in the Press

I know I'm not the most consistent blogger. I probably post just enough not to piss off the limited number of readers I do have. As infrequent as my ramblings are, I really do enjoy it. I started this project because I admired the internet world that Chris had created with Boysbriefs. After a year and a half, Nochd has been a creative outlet, a vent session, even a shameless opportunity to collect some objective feedback.
There was a recent posting in Southern Voice today about the world of GBLT blogging. While the blogging fad may be waning, I think it's sucked in enough supporters to keep the movement alive. Check out the SOVO article. It's a good read. As an added bonus, the writer quoted Chris and included a pimpin' blogger profile and a snapshot of him in his supergirl costume.

WARNING: YOU HAVE ACCESSED A RESTRICTED SITE

I spend a good portion of the workday quietly sitting in a cube, amidst a floor of technical engineers and internet security architects. I happen to be neither and, after listening to the technocratic shit that spews over one cube wall into the next, I really have no desire to change the direction of my career. Once in a while, though, these boneheads make me laugh.
Last week, there was an apparent issue with website blocking. I only know this because at about 6pm, a flustered architect waddled his fat ass into my cube in a frantic huff.

“You’ve got to help me. My team has gone home and I need to test a security patch.”

Umm… okay. A better start would have been, “Hello my name is… but whatever. I nodded my head in acknowledgement. I’m ready to accept my mission, Fat Technical Man.

“Could you pull up Playboy.com? Tell we what you see. I need to know if we’re blocking.”

First of all, he obviously didn’t want the web sniffer linking Playboy.com to HIS account. Sure, let the “random new guy that dresses well” take the fall. I may be queer, but I’m not a fucking idiot.
Secondly, even if he did guarantee me absolution, I could certainly come up with a better boundary test than Playboy.com- something with “sling” in the URL, definitely a foreign domain, perhaps some streaming video of a little sheep banging. Chalk it up to the QA analyst in me.
After this dim flicker of creativity, I realized that improving his test wasn’t my project or even my job. And this fat guy was just looming in the cube doorway, absorbing all the oxygen and blocking all the light. It was like he was using some creepy jedi-mind control. I couldn't breathe. I just wanted him to go away. So I mindlessly plodded in his request. Of course it didn’t work. I showed him my screen. He smiled and waddled away… his reason for existence staring back at me from the screen: WARNING: YOU HAVE ACCESSED A RESTRICTED SITE. No doubt I’ve been blacklisted as an internet porn addict now.